Gaming devices which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming devices generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate the primary or base game. In many of these gaming devices, the award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and based on the amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
Many known slot gaming devices include a plurality of reels. In these gaming devices, the player initiates the spinning of the reels by making one or more wagers on one or more paylines. Such gaming devices may have one, three, five, nine, fifteen, twenty-five or any other suitable number of paylines which extend horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The player wagers on a player selected number or combination of paylines, such as one, two, three, five, ten or fifteen paylines and the reels are activated to spin.
After the reels spin to generate a plurality of symbols, the gaming device analyzes the generated symbols to determine if the gaming device has randomly generated a winning symbol or winning symbol combination on one or more of the wagered on paylines.
A paytable determines the award that a player wins if a designated winning symbol or designated winning symbol combination occurs on an activated payline. Typically, a line pay award is calculated by multiplying the award value for the winning symbol or winning symbol combination by the amount wagered upon the payline upon which the winning symbol or winning symbol combination appears. Such calculated awards are provided to the player. In conventional slot gaming machines, for example, if a player wagers one credit on a first payline and another credit on a second payline, the player has activated two paylines. Making an additional wager activates another payline or increases the wager played on one of the first or second activated paylines. This creates a play of the game having a certain number of activated paylines by a certain number of credits per payline.
Slot gaming machines are typically set to pay back on average a certain percentage of the amount of money wagered by players. The average percentage of money wagered that is paid back to the player as an award is sometimes called the average expected payback or average expected payback percentage. The average payback provided by a gaming machine is determined by the paytable(s) of the gaming machine. For example, for a slot game, the paytable determines each of the awards that will be provided to a player for each of the winning symbols or winning symbol combinations that appear on an activated payline. Gaming devices typically have predetermined paytables including predetermined winning combinations and predetermined awards. Although the actual payback may vary, the expected payback for a gaming machine is predetermined and remains constant throughout game play.
Gaming device manufacturers constantly strive to make gaming devices that provide as much enjoyment and excitement as possible. Players enjoy playing for high awards. Thus, to increase player enjoyment and excitement, a need exists to provide new gaming machines which vary award returns and risk.